Biological Diversity

This introductory level class for biological and related majors covers a broad spectrum of organisms, how they interact with other organisms at the population and community levels, and an introduction to the various biomes of the world, as well as the driving forces of natural selection, evolution, and speciation. For this project, the students were asked to find a topic of interest to them in the course, and write a research paper that tied in their interests to what we have learned in class. Some students took an organismal approach, and described a species or taxonomic group in detail, others took a habitat approach and described the biodiversity found in various habitats around the globe, and still other students took a process approach and delved deeper into a process that we see at work in the evolution of organisms around us today. These presentations represent summaries of the students findings, and an introduction to their interests, while at the same time letting them comment individually on their classmates’ work, and help each other to address points that they might not have considered previously and to learn from what other students were doing. The topics covered by students for their presentations include: